Published: Thursday, November 22, 2012 at 9:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, November 22, 2012 at 9:30 a.m.

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators threatened Wednesday to bar Houston-based Black Elk Energy from working in the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn’t take immediate steps to improve safety after a fatal fire last week and more than 300 violations in the past two years.

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But the move was decried by some as too little, too late, and it raised fresh questions about the effectiveness of safety changes imposed after the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

Bob Dean, an associate director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, likened the government’s approach to ''locking the gate after the horse has bolted the barn.''

''This is the right thing to do,'' Dean said. ''Unfortunately it coms too late for the killed or injured workers and their families.''

The Nov. 16 explosion on board Black Elk’s platform roughly 18 miles off the Louisiana coast killed one worker, critically injured others and left one still missing.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement ordered Black Elk Energy to develop a plan for improving the safety of its operations by Dec. 15 and told it to immediately halt burning, welding and other activities that could ignite fires at its 98 production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Regulators also are barring the firm from launching operations at facilities that are currently offline.

''Black Elk has repeatedly failed to operate in a manner that is consistent with federal regulations,'' said James Watson, director of the safety bureau that oversees offshore oil operations. ''BSEE has taken a number of enforcement actions – including issuing numerous incidents of non compliance, levying civil penalties and calling in the company’s senior leadership to review their performance and the ramifications of failing to improve.''

''We appreciate the perspective of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement,'' Hoffman said. ''Safety is a high priority for Black Elk Energy, and we will continue to work cooperatively with local and national federal agencies to understand exactly what happened with the incident at our rig in the Gulf of Mexico.''

In a letter to the company Wednesday, the safety bureau said it had documented ''numerous troubling safety incidents involving Black Elk facilities,'' including last week’s fatal platform fire.

The safety bureau has issued 315 ''incidents of non-compliance’' to the company during its two-year history operating in the Gulf of Mexico. On 12 occasions, the agency ordered the company to shut in its facilities because the violations were considered so severe or life-threatening that work could not safely continue.

During that same two-year time frame, the safety bureau ordered Black Elk to shut off specific equipment 145 times because it was too risky to continue operating. The agency also issued 158 warnings to Black Elk, ordering the firm to correct an assortment of violations.

In one case two years ago, regulators ordered Black Elk to pay a $307,000 fine after the safety bureau determined the company had not tested a safety valve every six months as mandated. When it finally was tested, the valve was found to be leaking excessively -_ and then it took another 117 days to be repaired or replaced.

In an Oct. 20 incident still being investigated, the safety bureau said six workers were hospitalized after an acid-based chemical was used to treat one of Black Elk’s wells without proper precautions.

The safety bureau stepped up its inspections of Black Elk operations after red flags were raised, prompting the agency to issue 45 incidents of non-compliance for violations at nine of the firm’s facilities in the South Marsh Island area of the Gulf of Mexico last month.

Marilyn Heimann, with the Pew Environment Group, said Wednesday’s disclosures show ''there is still more to do on prevention and safety,'' two years after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig claimed 11 lives and launched the nation’s worst oil spill. ''We commend BSEE for their strong response to this incident, but they still need more resources and support to prevent these problems.''

Dean stressed that robust inspections and ''decisive action’' are needed to discourage companies from cutting corners.

''There’s a difference between issuing citations and protecting our workers, waters and wildlife,'' he said. In the case of Black Elk, he said, ''that’s 300 warnings, 300 red flags, 300 opportunities for authorities to step in and demand better. Why did it take a tragic disaster for enforcers to step in and connect the dots?''

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill have unsuccessfully pushed legislation that would make it easier to block companies with repeated violations from buying offshore drilling leases or working on the outer continental shelf altogether.

While federal regulators already have some latitude, current law limits their powers. The Interior Department can disapprove or revoke a company’s status as an operator, but only after determining that the firm’s ''operating performance is unacceptable.'' The safety bureau stopped short of issuing a notice of unacceptable performance on Wednesday.

And while incidents of non-compliance can kick off a lengthy civil penalty process, fines are capped at $40,000 per incident per day. Any significant hike in the maximum fine would be up to Congress; otherwise, current law limits the safety bureau to making periodic adjustments for inflation.

After the 2010 oil spill, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued incidents of non-compliance to BP, the London-based company that operated the failed Macondo well in the Gulf. But the safety bureau did not deem BP’s overall performance ''unacceptable’' or move to bar the company from operating offshore.

BSEE does not routinely disclose the number of violations logged by oil and gas companies working offshore or the fines imposed on those firms.

That can foster a false sense of security about what’s happening offshore, said Jacqueline Savitz, a senior campaigns director with Oceana.

''You want to think everything is going smoothly, but the fact of the matter is, when you scratch the surface, you see there are a lot of problems,'' Savitz said.

Founded in 2007 by John Hoffman, a former BP and Amoco executive, Black Elk holds interests in 854 wells connected to 155 platforms spanning the Gulf of Mexico. It is the main operator on 98 platforms, according to federal records.

The company has adopted an aggressive acquisition plan that is focused on buying older wells and facilities. The wells linked to the platform involved in Friday’s accident date back decades to the 1950s and 1960s.

Those decades-old facilities come with big maintenance needs, increasing the need for construction work on the sites and possibly boosting the chance of accidents.

Black Elk’s acquisition

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